


Empty Pot

by ohboyohboyohboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angry Castiel, Angry Castiel/Dean Winchester, Angry Dean, Angry Dean Winchester, Awkward Flirting, Drinking, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Grumpy Castiel, Humor, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:47:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6339238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohboyohboyohboy/pseuds/ohboyohboyohboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post mid-season 8  - Sam and Dean are living in the bunker with a freshly human and incredibly irritating Castiel, and Dean is getting sick of Cas's crap. </p><p>Featuring: lots of fighting, drunken flirting, a mind-boggling amount of fluff, and a very grumpy human-Castiel (my favorite).</p><p>It's a ridiculous garbage bag of feels, and I LOVE IT.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Pot

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't find the fanfic I'd been dreaming about all month, so I went ahead and wrote it.

“ _Damn_ it, Cas,” Dean muttered under his breath.  
  
Those three words were becoming the most common phrase spoken in the bunker in the months since Cas had moved in. Dean was beginning to feel like a parrot of himself, or a parrot of Sam, or that Sam was a parrot of him and it was all just repeating, repeating, _repeating_ until he was so frustrated he had to physically sit down.  
  
“Did Cas drain the coffee pot again?” Sam asked, waltzing by the kitchen sink smugly with a semi-full mug of his one-cream no-sugar.  
  
“Yes,” Dean grumbled. “What, did you make some before he got to it?”  
  
“Yeah, and knowing that he’s been stalking out the pot, I waited until it was full enough to just get some before leaving it alone,” Sam chuckled quietly. Dean pursed his lips and moved to rinse out the coffee pot and refill the grounds. He was tired, and namely, he was _not in the mood for this shit_.  
  
In the first few days that Cas had been living with them as a human, he’d been fine – well, more than fine. So fine that it got to be _not_ fine, in fact, as the former-angel was so quiet and stiff and seemingly always on the verge of sobbing that Dean and Sam had to have a talk with him.  
  
“ _Everything…everything is good, Cas. We’re good. We just want you to be happy,”_ they’d said. “ _We’re worried about you – you’re tired, you’re falling apart. This is your home, man – treat this place like your home_.”  
  
_Oh_ , how Dean had come to regret that last sentence.  
  
After maybe two weeks of living in the bunker, Cas finally started to loosen up. No, he certainly wasn’t starting to act “human” necessarily, but he was starting to let himself feel more comfortable. He allowed himself to sleep, to eat – the things he so harshly fought against after first losing his grace. He started treating the Winchesters as his allies again rather than as disappointed strangers.  
  
Sam noticed astutely that Castiel the former-angel was really adapting to human life well. Maybe, Dean wondered, maybe that was what hit the _fucking bitch switch_ in Cas that made him switch from graceless and gracious to a piece of shit roomie with both a superiority complex and an inferiority complex at the _same God damn time_.  
  
Dean had started to notice the changes in the mornings.  
  
When Cas had first moved in, he barely left his room outside of using the restroom. Dean didn’t even realize what Cas had been doing to keep himself alive until he interrupted Cas in the bathroom outside the library one morning to see him there – standing at the sink, hunched over, cupping water into his mouth from the tap faucet with red rimmed, swollen eyes and bare feet. He’d been wearing the same clothes for three days. He’d been starving.  
  
Dean cringed thinking about how he could have just… _not been there_. It's not like he'd been trying to hurt Cas or abandon him - he just didn't know what he had been meant to do. What the hell was he supposed to know about taking care of a fallen angel/best friend/ex-best friend/God knows what else? Regardless, he knew he had fucked up. He hadn’t been there for Cas, and a sharp pang of guilt hit his stomach like a brick. He had rushed to Cas, grabbed him by the shoulders – before Cas had realized what was happening he was collapsing to the floor, gasping, disoriented, confused.  
  
There had been screaming. There had been a lot of quiet talking – explanations, apologies. Everything that had happened, everything that _could_ have happened.  
  
In the days before Cas had eaten as a human – that had been the worst of it.  
  
Eventually as things calmed down, Cas’ demeanor started to go back to normal, as normal as a former-angel of the lord’s demeanor could be. Dean was thrilled to see Cas stop asking permission to take a nap on the couch and start just taking things. Sam and Dean were so shocked the first time that Cas was sarcastic with them in the bunker that before they even really realized what had happened, they were falling onto each other laughing. Things were finally starting to fall back into place – Sam, Dean, Cas! Team Free Will was back together and close again!  
  
There had been a lot of talking, and naturally, a lot of adjusting, but the brothers and their angel were developing a rhythm around one another.  
  
Eventually though, this rhythm took a very organically _Winchester_ turn. Cas started to really. Really. Piss the brothers off.  
  
It started with the coffee pot. Every morning, a brother would walk up to the kitchen counter and start the pot of coffee. When going back to fill up a mug ten minutes later, the coffee pot would be left drained, and dirty – nothing there but wet grounds and a few brown drips along the counter. For a day or two, Sam was convinced something worth hunting was causing the ghostly coffee disappearance as it never really appeared that anyone else was even _awake_ to get coffee in the first place. That is, before Dean knocked on Cas’ door one morning to find Cas curled up in his bed with somewhere between 20 and 30 books at his feet, holding what had to be a novelty giant travel coffee mug that he had gotten from god knows where before showing up to the bunker. Maybe he had found it in a storeroom. Hell, maybe he’d prayed for it and some quirky, final angel had said, “Sure, Castiel, you’ve lost your grace, but I’ll _bestoweth upon you this giant fucking mug for you to use to piss off the Winchesters on the daily.”_  
  
Dean ground his teeth at the thought.  
  
  
After the coffee, Cas started finding new, more creative ways to frustrate the rest of the team:  
  
• Leaving the door at the top of the bunker wide open causing mice to get in because the bunker was stuffy and he wanted to feel some wind.  
  
• Getting warm in his socks at random intervals, and stripping them off throughout the bunker, leaving them there like giant sock snowflakes four times a day.  
  
• Pissing in the toilet while someone else had been using the shower –  
  
Actually that last one may just be to Dean.  
  
Huh.  
  
Well, whatever Cas was doing it for, it was annoying the living shit out of Dean. In addition to the fact that Cas’ charming sarcasm had gotten… _mean_. And bitter. He had become a grumpy little shit to be perfectly frank.  
  
“I swear to God, Sammy, I’m going to lock his door at night after he goes to bed and unlock it when I wake up from now on,” Dean grumbled, laying his head against the cold kitchen counter as he waited for the coffee to refill.  
  
“Like you actually would,” piped up gravelly voice from the doorway – Cas had come back into the kitchen.  
  
“ _Cas_ , you’ve got to stop taking all the coffee at once, man. We’ve had this talk,” said Sam gently.  
  
“ _Mmm_ , yes, I remember that. I’ll keep it in mind,” Cas mumbled sardonically under his breath. He grabbed a book off of the kitchen table that Dean supposed he had left there sometime in the middle of the night before and headed back to his bedroom.  
  
Dean crossed his arms and looked back to Sam with an eyebrow raised.  
  
“I’m tellin’ you, Sammy, I’ve got half a mind to take him out to the pond in the back and throw him in.”  
  
Sam laughed heartily, “Yeah, yeah, just try not to shoot him first.”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes.  
  
“Maybe you should – “  
  
Dean groaned before Sam could finish, “We’ve _talked,_ Sam, we talked all night long.”  
  
“You talked about the big things, Dean, but you never talk about the little things.”  
  
Dean blinked. “You going to make a point there, Meg Ryan?”  
  
Sam scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Just – just maybe ask him like…” Sam paused and shifted, clearly trying to put into words a point that he didn’t think Dean would immediately grasp. “Ask him what’s up. Ask him how he’s doing.”  
  
“You want me to ask him, ‘ _What’s up_?’” Dean asked wildly.  
  
Sam rolled his eyes. “Look, you two are close.”  
  
“Yeah. Real, real close.”  
  
“No, come on, Dean – you have that…thing. That profound bond shit.”  
  
“Yeah well, it ain't exactly been the same,” Dean muttered. “You know that, Sam, don’t be stupid,” he said quietly.  
  
“Yeah, I do, Dean, and that’s exactly what I mean – do you think maybe, _maybe_ he’s acting different because he feels like he’s being treated differently?”  
  
Dean paused.  
  
Maybe Sam had a point.  
  
“Whatever, dude - it’s too early for this shit,” he grumbled. “Ahhh, finally!” he crooned, pouring a fresh mug of coffee for himself. Sam sniffed at him and left under the guise of looking for new cases.

  


* * *

  


_“Do you think maybe,_ maybe _he’s acting different because he feels like he’s being treated differently?_ ”  
  
Sam’s words rang in Dean’s head as he knocked on Cas’ door.  
  
“ _What?”_ he heard from behind the door. “ _Going to take a shower soon?”_  
  
Dean heard laughter and annoyance bubbled up inside him. _Little piece of shit_.  
  
“No, Cas, I wanted to – “ he huffed, “I wanted to _talk_. With _you_. About… _stuff.”_  
  
“ _Oh, sounds enticing.”_  
  
Dean waited a beat.  
  
“O…Okay, so can I come in?” he asked.  
  
“ _No thank you, Dean_.”  
  
“ _Cas,”_ Dean barked. He heard a melodramatic sigh and a grumbling until the door jerked open, leaving him dead-center in front of sharp blue eyes and a messy shock of hair.  
  
_His hair’s gotten longer_ , Dean noticed. It looked…okay.  
  
“Alright, _Dean_? What did you need?”  
  
Dean pursed his lips and pushed past Cas into his bedroom, sitting gingerly on the foot of the bed and looking up at Cas from beneath his lashes. “I wanted to ask…”  
  
Cas raised an eyebrow. “Mm?”  
  
“I…um,” Dean coughed. “Well, you know – what’s up?”  
  
Cas blinked.  
  
“I don’t know, Dean. I am tired all the time, I’m stuck in a heaven forsaken bunker underground with a millionth of a fraction of the resources I had only one year ago, I’ve developed a twinge in my neck due to the unforgiving plush nature of these ridiculous beds – “  
  
“ _Hey_ , these beds are sweet,” Dean barked. Cas stopped in his tracks, licking his lips, and Dean noticed a flush coming over his pale cheeks.  
  
“Well. You just take your pick. That is _what is up_ ,” he grumbled, inhaling sharply as if to puff the blushing out of himself. Cas stood stock-still in the center of his bedroom.  
  
Dean stormed out of the room. “Fine, Cas.”

  


* * *

  


It had been a month and a half since Dean had gotten laid. Wanting to solve that problem, he drove about an hour out of town, found a bar, and got laid.  
  
The man knew what he wanted, and he never took too long in finding _enthusiastic_ participants.  
  
This was all more than fine with Sam, who was, too be honest, a little surprised it had taken Dean so long to get antsy enough to leave the bunker for some action in the first place.  
  
The morning after Dean had driven back, Dean found Sam in the kitchen.  
  
“Hey, man,” Sam laughed, “Took you long enough.”  
  
“Oh whatever,” Dean said grinning, “It happened, I am _good_ and _back on the fucking horse_ if you know what I mean.” Sam threw his head back and laughed.  
  
“How far out of town did you have to go to finally find a girl in the first place?”  
  
Dean pulled out a chair next to his brother at the table after filling up a cup of coffee for himself. “Ha ha ha. You’re lucky I didn’t stay in town and spoil the entire population for you. One look at me, and you’d look like Quentin Tarantino to them.”  
  
“Oh yeah, I’m sure that comparison would spring right to mind with that _stupid fucking cologne_ you wear.”  
  
“Hey, _hey –_ 7/11 Don Perdot has gotten me nothing but good luck!” Dean said accusingly, and paused, rubbing his hand over the warmth of the coffee mug. “Even if it is the same cost as a red bull.”  
The boys turned at the sound of the fridge door opening to see Cas standing there in Dean’s pajamas.  
  
_That’s where my grey sweatpants went_ , Dean thought. _Huh_.  
  
“Hey Cas,” Sam said over his shoulder, “Guess who went out and _actually_ convinced someone to sleep with him last night?”  
  
Dean punched his brother in the arm. “Oh shut up – she was gorgeous. And she was smart too! She talked all about, you know…books and stuff. Until – heh, heh – until she _wasn’t_ talking,” Dean said with a waggling of his brows.  
That’s when Cas slammed the fridge door shut.  
  
“ _Riveting story_ ,” he spat. “Really, I can tell you’re putting your blessings to good use.”  
  
Sam and Dean exchanged a look.  
  
“Cas?” Dean asked.  
  
“ _What?”_ Cas pivoted, halfway out of the door from the kitchen.  
  
“I – just – nothing, I guess,” Dean said quietly. A peculiar feeling started to come over Dean's chest as he noticed that same small flush cloud over Castiel, red blooming up his neck. Either he was pissed off or -  
Cas huffed and spun on his heel, leaving silently.  
  
  
Until he stormed back into the room, snatched Dean’s mug of coffee up from him, and stormed right back out.  
  
“ _Wha – HEY!”_ Dean’s yell could be heard all the way down the bunker halls.

  


* * *

  


Two weeks passed by, and Cas’ moods continued to fluctuate. If you had asked Sam, it would seem like Cas was really trying to make an effort to be kinder sometimes, but according to Dean, it was just getting worse and worse.  
  
Then again, Sam wasn’t dealing with some of the shit that Dean had been picking up on. Cas had clearly been sneaking clothes out of his room (even after the fact that Dean had _so generously_ bought him a life supply of Walmart clearance t-shirts and jeans). He’d also started using Dean’s toiletries – his shampoo conditioner combo bottle, his stolen “semi-fancy” CVS brand soap. Dean really hoped he hadn’t been using his toothbrush, but was self-aware enough to know he was too lazy to really replace it yet if he was actually that concerned.  
  
Dean slugged through the hall toward the kitchen, half asleep on the morning after a hunt, sore and looking for caffeine. Hunts had started to take a lot more out of him since become human again for the _third goddamn time_ and he wasn't faulting himself for that.  
  
It's not like he was, you know, _aging_ or anything. Dean grumbled at the thought that Sam had so generously put into his mind on the last hunt that maybe his eyes weren't just blurry and his back wasn't just sore from sprinting around all day.  
  
_Whatever,_ Dean mumbled to himself, before feeling his shoulder get shoved backward by -  
  
"Hey - Cas?" Dean started, looking up at the figure that he had run straight into. Sure enough, Cas was sneaking back to his room with his jumbo mug. Dean laughed at the surprise over Cas' face.  
  
_"_ I - hello, Dean," Cas spoke quietly and quickly, eyes darting past Dean toward his bedroom at the end of the hall. He shifted his feet underneath himself and made an attempt to skirt by.  
  
"Oh, what, leaving so soon?" Dean sidestepped in front of Cas. What, this little motherfucker wants to play like he hasn't been purposefully seeking out to piss Dean off every second since he last tried to confront him? _Fine, motherfucker,_ Dean thought, _two can play._  
  
"That's an awful lot of coffee you've got there, Cas."  
  
Dean crouched slightly to try to make eye contact with the former angel, who was ducking his head and biting his plush lower lip.  
  
"What, you not goin' to make fun of me? Everything _all good today, Cas?_ " Dean pressed.  
  
"Yes, okay, Dean, I get it - I’m just trying to get by.” He rushed to get the words out of his mouth. What the hell had him so antsy?  
  
"Oh come on, why not now? Why not tease me _now?_ " Dean reached for Cas' coffee mug - Cas jerked backward and finally looked up at Dean's eyes where he had expected to find pure frustration and annoyance. "You've been in such a fuckin' hurry to get under my skin lately -"  
  
_"_ Under _your_ skin?" Cas bit out.  
  
"Oh Jesus Christ, Cas, don't get cute with me." Dean barked.  
  
"I don't have anything to confess to you, Dean, now _let_ _me leave_."  
  
"Well you clearly got somethin' to say to me."  
  
Cas laughed harshly, “Yes, Dean, and you’ve had plenty to say to me. ‘ _Everything is the same, Castiel, nothing has changed -”_  
  
_“_ I never said nothing has changed.”  
  
“Oh, that’s right. You’re a Winchester and your outstanding incapability of doing as you say is just as mind-numbingly poignant as it was four years ago.“  
  
“ _What,_ and _you’ve_ been trying so hard to get us back to where we were?” Dean felt himself yelling. Yelling? When did that happen?  
  
“ _Yes,”_ Cas yelled back sharply and halted. “And...no. No, but _I’m not -”_  
  
“Not _what?”_  
  
“I _am not supposed to be this way_ , and I have been unaware of the - of the _repercussions of human tendencies,_ of human…” he broke off, beginning to tremble.  
  
“Don’t sit there and tell me you don’t know fucking emotions, Cas, because I know that’s horseshit. You and me, Cas, we’ve been through _too fucking muc_ _h to just_ turn into nothing.”  
  
Cas tilted his head at Dean and narrowed his eyes. _Oh, that old move_ , Dean thought.  
  
Cas’ mouth curled into a snarl. _"_ If we're really going to stand here and bicker about _who_ is under _whose_ skin, I truly suggest you _fuck off and get out of my way -"_  
  
Before Dean knew what he was doing, his teeth grinding together, he smacked the mug out of Cas' hand and down the hall, hearing what sounded like a tsunami of hot coffee splatter the floor and the plastic cup tumble yards away. Cas, body frozen and face indignantly gaping down the hall after his lost cup found himself pinned to the hallway wall by Dean.  
  
Dean took sharp breaths through his nose, choking down thoughts of ' _what the fuck are you doing?'_ and ' _shit, our faces are close.'_  
  
_"_ I never asked you to confess anything, Cas. Just tell me what the fucked happened - what the fuck did I do that has you this pissed off at me?"  
  
Cas' eyes darted around Dean like mice, _desperately_ watching for a way to get loose of a predator.  
  
" _HEY -"_ Dean found himself barking out, bring a hand up to Cas' jaw and forcing his eyes to his own.  
  
And that's when Dean noticed it.  
  
Cas was shaking so hard he was nearly writhing. His face had gone completely crimson, his pupils dilated to all hell, panting before Dean like his was meeting his judgment.  
  
_Shit,_ how long had it been since Cas had stared at Dean like that? It used to feel like every second, but Dean was starting to realize he hadn't felt Cas look at him in weeks. Maybe months.  
  
Or maybe he’d never looked at him like that before at all.  
  
Dean started himself, and jerked himself backward so fast he hit the wall behind him. The two boys stared at each other, the hall silent but for their heavy breathing.  
  
"Yeah, well," he said quietly, shifting his weight. Cas took the opportunity in movement to dart around Dean's shoulder and walk forward until feeling his arm get yanked backward.  
  
"Something else, Dean?" He asked, malice dripping from his voice.  
  
"What the hell is going on? Because -"  
  
Cas rolled his eyes, ripped his arm away, and stalked off before Dean could finish his sentence and heard a sharp, " _Hey!"_ from down the hall.

  


* * *

  


Dean spent the night pacing in his room.  
  
Then he spent the next morning pacing around the bunker kitchen and trying to busy himself mindlessly - alphabetizing his tapes, then re-organizing them chronologically, cleaning out his shower, trying to organize the research from the last few cases.  
  
"Jeez, Dean," Sam laughed, "what the hell got into you? You haven't been this antsy since you were 13 and still trying to hide from Dad when you were jerking off."  
  
Shit.  
  
_Shit._

  


* * *

It had been two days since the incident in the hall, and Dean couldn't get any of it out of his head. Not a fucking second of it. He needed to sort this shit out pronto before he found himself cleaning the bunker bathrooms four times a day to keep himself busy.  
Dean steadied himself and his bottle of Jim Beam in front of Cas' door.  
  
_Deep breaths, dude,_ he thought to himself. _You're here to get your best friend back on your side._  
  
Yeah. Sure.  
  
He rolled his eyes at himself and knocked for the fourth time. "Caaaaaas," he sang. "I've got a surprise for you."  
  
Cas yanked open the door like he'd been standing there for minutes. "What?"  
  
Dean waggled his eyebrows and dangled the bottle in front of Cas. The messy haired little grump rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and groaned.  
  
_“Dean_ \- “  
  
“Come on, Cas.”  
  
“Yes, Dean, because the perfect remedy to my anguish over the human experience is to cloud my mind with intoxicants.”  
  
Dean grinned, “Well, hell, it works for me.”  
  
Cas locked eyes with him.

  


* * *

  


“Alright, Cas,” Dean said, his new confidence allowing him to have dragged Cas from his cluttered bedroom down to the kitchen. “The game is called Questions, and it’s the perfect way for us to settle...whatever this shit is.”  
  
Cas sighed quietly. “Mm hmm. And how do we play this _Questions_ game, Dean?”  
  
“Well - I’ll ask you a question and you can either answer it totally truthfully, or take a shot.”  
  
“That’s barbaric.”  
  
Dean grinned, “Oh please, no it’s not.”  
  
“Don’t I get to ask you a question?”  
  
“Well, yeah, we go back and forth.”  
  
Cas paused and tilted his head at the cards. Dean had forgotten how much he missed seeing those little movements from his best friend.  
  
“I go first, then.”  
  
Dean hesitated. “Well - yeah, okay, yeah. Go ahead.”  
  
Castiel’s mouth stretched into an unexpectedly mischievous grin. “Haven’t you said that you’ve used this game at bars to pick up women?”  
  
Dean’s eyes shot open wide and he felt himself guffaw.  
  
“Alright. Alright, I’m taking a shot. But -”  
  
Cas interrupted his explanation with a small, _very_ Castiel cackle.  
  
“ _But,”_ Dean pressed on, “that is _only_ because I want to go easy on you. I don’t know how much of a lightweight you’ll be, and you know, this’ll give you a headstart.”  
  
“Mm, yes, Dean, of course,” he said, still choking down tiny laughs.  
  
Dean ran his tongue over his teeth after throwing back his whiskey and noticed Cas still sitting there, giggling to himself like a toddler. “Oh shut your face.”  
  
“I believe it is your turn, Dean.”  
  
Alright. Alright, he really should go easy on him. Nothing too serious, but nothing too embarrassing. I mean, maybe a little embarrassing though.  
  
“Have you jerked off yet, Cas?”  
  
Cas froze and gaped at Dean. “I’m sorry?”  
  
“You know, like….as a human,” Dean said, a sly smile pulling at his mouth corners. _So much for nothing too embarrassing. Fuck it_. The single shot of whiskey and the heat and the adrenaline were making a really wonderful cocktail together in Dean’s gut.  
  
Cas’ eyes darted around the kitchen and he shifted in his seat.  
  
“You could always take a shot, Cas.”  
  
“ _You -_ you’re going to assume I did it even if I take one!” Cas cried out.  
  
Dean’s laughter rang out, “Yeah, _and?_ You can just admit it, or you can - _WOAH_.”  
  
Cas had grabbed the bottle of Jim Beam and gulped.

  


* * *

  


_45 minutes in_  
  
The boys were firing questions at each other rapidly, seemingly unable to get enough out of humiliating each other. Eight questions asked, four shots taken, and both boys seemed incapable of getting through a sentence without laughing.  
  
“Dean, truly, if you’ve worn women’s underwear, you will receive no judgment from me as your friend and your ally. I was a genderless being, and as such, how could I truly cast judgement - “  
  
“ _I - why would you even ask that_!” Dean yelled.  
  
“I saw something about it on television, and it seems quite common!” Cas yelled in return. “I was just curious, Dean.”  
  
“Well…” Dean paused. “Well, no, Cas. I haven’t.”  
  
Cas smiled gently at him. “Alright, Dean. See? Simple question that round.”  
  
Dean sneered at him before noticing a look of confusion pass over his friend’s face.  
  
“But - but Dean,” he paused. “What exactly happens when a question player _boldly lies in the face of a question_?”  
  
“ _You knew?!”_ Dean started up from his seat, and Cas shot out of his chair racing around the table from Dean.

  


* * *

  


_1 hour and 30 minutes in_  
  
Some combination of whiskey, adrenaline from physically _chasing_ each other, and - _fuck it, I admit it_ , Dean thought - arousal had brought the boys onto the kitchen tabletop: Dean, laying across the width of the table with his knees and feet dangling over the edge and his arms under his head; Cas simply in the center, cross legged.  
  
“Do you have any regrets, Dean?” Cas asked quietly.  
  
Dean sighed. “You know I do, Cas.” He glanced up at him, Cas’ blue eyes staring down at him with more emotion than he could really handle in his current state. “I just… I know there’s a lot I would change if I could. We made mistakes. Not just you - me, Sam. We all fucked up somewhere, and things - things are in a weird place right now. But - but I’m here. You’re here, Sam’s here.”  
  
Cas’ eyes had fallen to his own hands in his lap.  
  
Dean reached over and grabbed one. “So I mean...no regrets. I guess.”  
  
Cas smiled quietly.

  


* * *

  


_3 hours in_  
  
“You _cannot_ sit here and tell me that you take all the fucking coffee because you like the taste of coffee-”  
  
“You asked me why I take it, I told you! How is answering that _I enjoy the beverage_ an unreasonable - _hic -_ answer to that question”  
  
Dean giggled, “Dude, when did you get the hiccups?”  
  
“Probably af - _hic_ \- after laughing at your ridiculous answer about ‘wettened dreams’.”  
  
“ _Wet_ dreams, Cas, and _oh my God, stop fucking bringing it up!_ ”  
  
Cas held his arms over his stomach and burst into laughter again in his position lying down on the kitchen floor next to Dean.  
  
“What, and _you’ve_ never had one yet, fresh-new-human Castiel?” Dean slurred and propped himself on his elbow to look at Cas.  
  
“It’s _not_ your turn to ask a question, Dean,” he slurred and grinned back, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“Holy shit, _holy shit you have!”_  
  
And then.

The boys darted up from the floor to the sound of keys dropping onto the table.  
  
“Uh...what the hell is going on?” Sam asked them.  
  
Cas snorted and slapped his hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter.  
  
“We were playing a game, “ Dean said carefully, trying not to trip over his own tongue as he scrambled up from the ground.  
  
“What and you - _holy shit_ , didn’t you just buy that booze at like 1pm? It’s like 6pm, you guys are fucking _wasted?”_  
  
“Dean started it,” Cas piped up from the floor.  
  
“Shut it,” Dean whispered, nudging Cas with his foot to get him to stand up.  
  
“Dean and I are friends again.”  
  
Sam’s eyebrows drew together and his hand came up to his forehead in what could only be exasperation and confusion.  
  
“Yeah - I - yeah,” Dean said, louder probably than he realized. “Yeah. We’re. Cas and I are...me and Cas.”  
  
Sam snorted. “I’m glad. You two were driving me insane,” he said calmly, walking past Dean toward the kitchen counter where he put down a bag of flea market dishes and cutlery.  
  
Dean and Cas locked eyes again. _This is - this is fine_ , Dean thought. He reached out and brushed his fingers up Cas’ forearm, feeling the hair on Cas’ arms raise. He looked up to see Cas’ eyes laser-pointed at his touch, an intense blush clouding up his neck. Dean bit his lip to hold back his smile and continued to trace his fingers up, up over Cas’ bicep and under his shirtsleeve -  
  
Sam cleared his throat loudly. “So, Cas told you he’s been using your toothbrush then?” Sam said with a smirk and a crossing of his arms over his chest.  
  
Dean and Cas’ necks whipped up to stare at each other, Cas’ mouth opening a closing like a goddamn _guppy_ trying to form words.  
  
“ _You little shit!”_ Dean laughed out. “ _I fucking knew it!_ ”  
  
“Oh did you?” Cas said, and promptly bit his lip, clearly trying to hold in whatever scathing sentence was bursting to get out of him.  
  
He couldn’t hold it in. “Well I’m glad you’re enjoying it enough to let me use it,” Cas rushed out, before slamming his hand back over his mouth. Dean’s jaw hit the floor.  
  
_“You fucking -”_ Dean stumbled over his words, feeling his entire body heat up.  
  
Called. The fuck. Out.  
  
He could feel his face turning bright red, and the only thing making him feel _any_ better was watching the same goddamn blush cover Cas from his hairline all the way down his shoulders.  
  
Thank God for hard liquor or Dean could have seem himself storming angrily out of the kitchen and denying the whole afternoon of drunken debauchery had ever happened. Instead, Dean promptly inhaled through his nose and stretched his arms over his shoulder.  
  
“Well then, _Castiel_ ,” he sang. “I think you need to cool down just a lil’ bit.”  
  
“Wha - _Dean, DEAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING,”_ Castiel screamed. Dean had shoved his shoulder under Castiel’s waist and pulled him over his shoulder.  
  
“ _Fuck,_ Castiel _,_ you’re heavy,” Dean said, an obvious smile in his words.  
  
“ _You drunken monster, put me the fuck DOWN_ ,” Cas wiggled and writhed in Dean’s grasp. Dean may have been tipsy, but he was sober enough to know how to keep himself balanced.  
  
Well, mostly.  
  
“Ooh, Cas, keep moving like that and I’ll have to cool down too,” Dean said, readjusting his grasp over Cas’ thighs and waist. Cas yelped.  
  
“Sam? I’ma’ go toss Cas in the pond out back. You wan’ come and make sure we drunk dummies don’t drown ourselves?” Dean asked his brother, doing his best to keep his arms around the wiggling former-angel.  
  
Sam looked between the two other boys.  
  
“Yeah, sure, okay. I’ll make sure you don’t fucking kill yourselves,” he said with a chuckle and a shrug.  
  
“ _No no no no NO NO, DEAN,”_ Cas yelped, drunken laughter overcoming him as Dean struggled up the stairs and out the door of the bunker.  
  
Between the door of the bunker and the edge of the small concentration pond beyond the edges of the tree-lining a few hundred feet out back, there was a lot of repeated yelping and screaming from Cas, and a lot of, “ _Shut your cakehole_ ” talk from Dean. Sam tried to say as silent as possible watching his idiot brother and friend.  
  
10 feet away from the busted up dock at the pond’s edge, Cas finally wriggled free of Dean’s arms and tumbled to the ground, quickly bouncing back up to his feet and attempting to run for it. Dean was fast enough to jump forward and snatch him up by the waist, earning him a handful of admittedly adorable giggles and a few more protests before hoisting him up at the waist and staggering to the edge of the water.  
  
“Alrighty, Cas,” Dean spoke loudly toward the water, “Give me one reason not to toss you in here right now.”  
  
“ _I won’t take your coffee, I won’t take your sweatpants, I won’t use your toothbrush anymore, Dean Dean Dean Dean, wait -”_  
  
Dean wrapped his arms snuggly around Castiel and jumped.

  


* * *

  


It was probably an hour before the three boys staggered back into the bunker, wet and muddy and exhausted - at some point during the brawl to get out of the pond first, they had dragged Sam into the mix. Sam insisted on the first shower as the “only truly innocent one,” and Dean and Cas had guiltily conceded, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders as they stumbled back into the kitchen where they’d first started the ridiculous day.  
  
Dean shoved at Cas playfully, swiping a muddy hand across Cas’ forehead and Cas laughed openly, heartily - a free laugh.  
  
“Dean,” Cas said, a smile plastered over his face.  
  
“Yeah, Cas?” Dean asked, leaning back against the kitchen table again.  
  
“I, um - “ he gulped openly and Dean laughed at the uncharacteristic display of self-consciousness. “I have another question before we - before we finish this evening.”  
  
“Shoot, Cas.”  
  
Cas bit his chapped lip. “I, um - Dean,” he paused.  
  
Dean and Cas locked eyes and smiled.  
  
“Dean, have you ever -”  
  
“Spit it out, Cas.”  
  
“ _Dean, have you ever kissed_ \- “ Cas stopped in his tracks and looked up at Dean, his face flaming red. He slammed his jaw shut, and opened it again, trying to backtrack, trying to come up with any way to save himself and the end of his ridiculously, presumptuous, mortifyingly transparent questions before -  
  
Dean wrapped a palm around the back of Cas’ neck and pulled their mouths together, their lips slotting together and their faces on fire. Cas opened his mouth to the light pressing of Dean’s tongue at his lower lip and felt hot breath, hands roaming everywhere, his back shoved up against the kitchen counter.  
  
Eventually when they came up for air and caught their breath, Cas looked up at Dean.  
  
“Have you wanted to do that as long as I have?” He asked.  
  
Dean’s face split into a grin as he lowered his forehead to Cas’. “Only one question per turn, Cas.”

  


* * *

  


The next morning, Dean woke up in his bed in the bunker with his best friend at his side. He sniffed around, waking himself and noticing that Cas was already awake, reading and gently toying with the hair behind his ears.  
  
“Good mornin’, Cas,” Dean said sleepily, nuzzling his head into Cas’ shoulder sleepily, fondly recalling the night before.  
  
“Hello, Dean,” Cas responded, looking over quickly from his book.  
  
_Fuck_ , Dean thought to himself. This was good.  
  
“What’s that smell?” Dean asked.  
  
“Coffee,” Cas responded quietly. “Don’t worry though, I brought an extra mug of coffee for you - over on your bedside table.”  
  
Dean sat up quickly and looked between Cas, Cas’ enormous coffee mug and his own chipped black flea market mug on Cas’ other side, and couldn’t help but throw his head back in laughter.  
  
Cas found Dean’s lips on his own immediately, pressing insistently and forcing a smile.  
  
“So you’re not going to stop draining the coffee pot in the morning then?” Dean asked.  
  
Cas smiled. “Probably not. I’ll always have some for you, though, Dean.”

  


* * *

  


Sam slammed his head against the side of the fridge staring at the empty coffee pot.  
  
Those lovesick fucking morons were going to be the death of him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
